The free market, she lifts you up. And the free market, she smacks you down. But sometimes, when the dollars line up just right, she does both … at the same time. Yes, it’s the incredibly rare and ultra-devastating Lifting Smackdown — a move even the one true eternal champ, Macho Man Randy Savage, couldn’t pull off. But then, the macho-est of savages has got nothing on unbridled capitalism, which frequently enables companies to profit from problems they foster in the first place. For example …

5

The Creators Of EpiPen Encourage Kids To Risk Fatal Allergy Attacks

Everybody knows that prevention is better than cure. In a perfect world, medicine shouldn’t act like an insurance company that only helps you after your house burns down; it should be more like the sprinkler company that stops the fire in the first place. Unfortunately, sometimes a cure is better than prevention … for the bottom line. Healthy people don’t buy nearly as much medicine as sick people do.

That’s the philosophy of Mylan, the creators of EpiPen, the portable device you stab yourself with if you’re suffering a life-threatening allergy attack. The problem for Mylan is that people who suffer from potentially lethal allergies tend to do a very good job of avoiding things that might kill them in the first place, thus eliminating their need to stock up on EpiPens. The solution? Run an advertising campaign to convince kids that they don’t need to be careful anymore! You want to shove your whole fist into a beehive like Yogi Bear? You want to slather your privates in peanut butter and roll around naked on an ant nest? Go right ahead! Just make sure you have an EpiPen handy for when your throat starts to close up.

In that 2012 TV commercial made by Mylan, a mother is driving her son to a friend’s birthday party when she tells him that even though nobody knows what the cake is made from, he can go ahead and eat it anyway because he’s prepared — with EpiPen! Don’t bother asking the host about the cake’s ingredients first! You just dive right into that hunk of impending death, and if you see the reaper’s grin, Little Billy, you go ahead and stab yourself with medicine until he fades.

The ad was almost immediately pulled, due to a torrent of complaints from parents who had spent their children’s entire lives trying to prevent exactly this kind of thinking. But Mylan didn’t pull the accompanying blitz of print magazine ads that went with the same campaign — at least, not until later, when the Office of Prescription Drug Promotion (OPDP) told them to knock it the hell off.

Throughout all of this, EpiPen prices remained prohibitively expensive for many who truly need the drug. But the icing on the deliciously deadly peanut butter cake came later, when employees brought their concerns to the CEO, Robert Coury. He carefully listened to their well-reasoned complaints, then promptly flipped them the double bird and told them all to go fuck themselves.

Obviously, with our reputation for both hyperbole and profanity, you’re going to assume that last part was a joke. It’s not. That’s literally what Coury did. According to The New York Times, who tried to be adults about the situation: “Mr. Coury replied that he was untroubled. He raised both his middle fingers and explained, using colorful language, that anyone criticizing Mylan, including its employees, ought to go copulate with themselves. Critics in Congress and on Wall Street, he said, should do the same. And regulators at the Food and Drug Administration? They, too, deserved a round of anatomically challenging self-fulfillment.”

See, writing like that is why we need journalists more than ever. Subscribe today!

Swedish company Niconovum AB, which sells nicotine sprays and pouches in Europe under the Zonnic brand, have expanded into the American market in recent years with its nicotine gum, which is sold in smaller packages for less than a pack of cigarettes. The goal is to compete with big names like Nicorette, which usually sells its gum in packages costing more than $10 a pop. You might know this noble company by another name, however: Reynolds American, Inc. And a look at the rest of their product line shows us that they’re the second-largest tobacco company in the USA.

In case you’re wondering why the hell a tobacco company would back a method for quitting tobacco, it does make good, if convoluted, business sense. See, despite rapidly decreasing sales, tobacco companies aren’t really suffering (yet) because they rely on an aging population of hardcore addicts who stubbornly refuse to succumb to fatal tumors. The lost revenue from young people failing to take up the habit is offset by constantly hiking the price of cigarettes, because more seasoned addicts are willing to pay anything. And because quitting attempts come with the territory, tobacco companies can keep their bottom line steady by controlling that industry as well. If all goes according to plan, once they get someone hooked on nicotine, that person will be a constant source of income even if they try to quit. Yet for some reason, tobacco companies have a bad reputation …

3

Coca-Cola Plays Both Sides Of The Drunk Driving Issue

In the early ’90s, Coca-Cola teamed up with Walmart to support MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving). The goal was to decrease the number of deaths on the road by compelling party-goers and bar patrons to choose non-alcoholic options. The campaign urged people to be responsible hosts, watch out for their intoxicated friends, and tie ribbons on their cars, because everybody knows drunks hate and fear the mighty ribbon.

MADD also partnered with bars and taverns to provide designated drivers with free, icy-cold glasses of Coca-Cola in exchange for not drinking booze. It was a great branding opportunity for Coke, and it really took off after the governor of Illinois directly promoted it. Sales of Coca-Cola rose around 490 percent during the campaign. Pretty smooth move, Coke-heads.

Of course, the alcohol industry wasn’t too happy about this whole situation. They have their own lobbying group, the American Beverage Institute, which spends its time fighting against things like alcohol taxes, sobriety checkpoints, and breathalyzer-linked ignition systems in cars, as well as lobbying to increase the legal blood alcohol limit for drivers. They despise MADD, often referring to it as “neo-prohibitionist” and roundly condemning its long-standing war against fun.

And guess who’s one of the major funding bodies behind ABI? That’s right, the Boy Scouts of America. Nah, obviously, it’s Coca-Cola.

Why the duplicity? Well, because while the ABI is primarily concerned with propping up the alcohol industry, their lobbying efforts also extend to rigorously opposing regulations on sugary drinks, such as Coke. Plus, y’know, some crazy sons of bitches have even been known to mix Coca-Cola with alcohol.

Unilever is probably the largest and most influential company you’ve never heard of. They own Ben and Jerry’s, Klondike, Wishbone Ranch Dressing, Country Crock, Breyer’s, Popsicle, and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, among dozens of other brands. Basically, if doctors recommend that you stay the hell away from something, Unilever is probably behind it.

But being such a diverse behemoth, Unilever often finds itself siphoning profits from brands that have rather different mission statements. For example, they own all of the cholesterol-laden heart attack triggers listed above, but they also used to own Slim-Fast, until they sold it off in 2014. That’s right, the same company that sold your favorite ranch dressings and incredulous butter substitutes also used to sell the product you turned to when you finally realized you’d become more ranch and margarine than human and needed to drop some weight.

And that’s not the only curious contradiction in Unilever’s menagerie of properties. Unilever also owns Dove, the soap company best known for running weird campaigns promoting female body positivity. Dove’s campaigns are often criticized for being ill-conceived and tone-deaf, but at least they’re trying to do the feminism thing. But Unilever also owns Axe — you know, the men’s stankspray whose advertising seems to be on a mission to offend every feminist everywhere:

Understandably, there’s been a little backlash about the fact that Unilever owns two brands that are pitted against one another in a Thunderdome-esque war of ideology.

1

Drug Companies Are Developing Cures To Treat The Opioid Crisis They’re Still Creating

In recent years, U.S. pharmaceutical companies have come under fire for facilitating one of the most catastrophic drug crises in human history: America’s prescription opioid epidemic. Opioids are powerful painkillers designed to combat powerful pains, but unfortunately for Big Pharma, most people don’t suffer from the kinds of chronic and debilitating pain that warrants a prescription. So to make a profit, they went ahead and marketed opioid solutions for everything from headaches to stubbed toes to those pesky opioid-withdrawal-aches.

The crisis has necessitated the invention of emergency opioid overdose solutions such as Narcan — essentially the EpiPen for opioid overdoses. Here’s the thing: Narcan, and products like it, are produced by big pharma companies, which you may remember from, like, two sentences ago, when we told you who created this problem to begin with. Insys Therapeutics make Subsys, an opioid spray which has been described as “heroin on steroids.” It’s a drug on drugs. It was designed to grant quick relief to people dying from horrible diseases, but in the name of better profit margins, it’s also prescribed for anything from back pain to tonsillitis.

Insys has gotten itself in a bit of trouble for needlessly pushing Subsys on the population. Since Subsys hit the market in 2012, many doctors have lost their licenses, and some even face criminal charges for accepting kickbacks from Insys to prescribe the drug to patients without cancer. But it wasn’t until Insys became inundated with lawsuits back in 2015 that their share price began to crater.

Insys was prepared for that eventuality. They’re now developing a spray much like Narcan to reverse the effects of overdosing on their own products — again, the ones they tried to get people hooked on with unethical marketing. And people have the nerve to suggest there are problems with late capitalism.

Saikat Bhowmik hates Facebook, and after researching for this article, he plans on quitting it altogether. Follow him on Twitter and visit his channels Amuzic II and Amuzic. Adam Schwallie is mainly doing this to prove to his family and friends that he is an actual, honest-to-god professional writer and that his college degree isn’t useless. Jordan Breeding also writes officially for Paste Magazine, unofficially on the Twitter and his blog , and occasionally with a open heart and mind in the comments section.

Amazon Business, the retailer’s free program for business customers offering fast shipping, discounts and purchase approvals, is now expanding to include grocery delivery from AmazonFresh. That means businesses can stock their employee break rooms with fresh goods, like produce, plus groceries and other items from local stores.

The news was first announced in an email to Business customers on Wednesday, which was spotted by GeekWire. We’ve since confirmed this is a new addition to the Business program, though it’s essentially the same experience that’s available to consumer customers.

Like the consumer version of the AmazonFresh service, Amazon Business customers will need to have a Prime membership to take advantage of grocery delivery. Prime costs $99 per year, while AmazonFresh is sold as a $14.99 monthly subscription added on top of Prime.

Business customers can link their individual Prime accounts to their Amazon Business accounts, which will be required to place AmazonFresh orders.

AmazonFresh’s expansion to support Business customers could boost adoption for Amazon’s grocery delivery subscription offering — a service that operates in an increasingly competitive market, among others like Instacart, Shipt and more. Amazon said in July it had grown its Amazon Business user base to more than 1 million customers across the U.S., meaning businesses that had signed up for its service.

However, unlike the competition, AmazonFresh is not yet available across the U.S. Today, AmazonFresh serves Seattle, New York, Philadelphia, Stamford, Trenton, Boston, Baltimore, Washington, DC, Northern Virginia, Dallas, Chicago, Miami, Denver and seven regions across California (Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento, San Jose and Stockton.) Outside the U.S., AmazonFresh is available in London, Berlin and Tokyo.

In addition to competitors like Instacart, Shipt and Peapod, Walmart has been moving quickly into the online grocery business, as well. Walmart now has more than 900 locations offering grocery pickup, a figure that’s up from 600 locations last year, and up from 100 stores just two years ago. It also just expanded its grocery delivery tests in partnership with Uber, and announced that it will work with Google to enable voice-based grocery orders starting next year.

Amazon, meanwhile, has been working to make its grocery delivery service more appealing, by dropping pricing last fall to the new rate of $14.99 per month, and, most recently, debuting “AmazonFresh Pickup” — drive-up grocery stores in Seattle where your orders can be loaded directly into your car. The company declined to share the number of AmazonFresh subscribers it has today.

Given Amazon’s massive acquisition of Whole Foods, the industry is now watching the retailer’s moves in grocery delivery more carefully, as it no longer seems that Amazon is treating AmazonFresh as an “experiment,” but is strategically moving into this vertical.

]]>Could Puerto Rico Be the Next Hot Tax Haven?https://www.makemoneyonlinetrends.com/2017/08/23/could-puerto-rico-be-the-next-hot-tax-haven/
Wed, 23 Aug 2017 13:25:14 +0000http://www.makemoneyonlinetrends.com/?p=87Read more →]]>Some 65,000 Puerto Ricans left their bankrupt U.S. island commonwealth last year. A group of private bankers are moving the other way. They’re increasingly opening offshore banks known as International Financial Entities, which were created by a Puerto Rican law in 2012. There are 44 IFEs now, with 18 opening in the past year, according to data compiled by the U.S. territory’s financial regulator. “Just in the last six months, we’ve probably closed seven deals for international banks,” says Ryan Christiansen, president of Christiansen Commercial Real Estate, a brokerage based in Puerto Rico that leases office space.

Tax experts attribute at least part of the influx to a little-known loophole made possible by the IFE structure. It lets non-U.S. account holders put money in Puerto Rico anonymously and potentially avoid taxes at home even as they benefit from the stability and safety of the U.S. That’s become increasingly attractive because of a new global financial-disclosure system taking effect in September. Under the Common Reporting Standard, more than 100 countries have agreed to automatically provide to one another annual reports about accounts belonging to people subject to taxes in each member nation. Previously, they mainly shared information on request, making it harder to identify suspect accounts. Much like the U.S.’s Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which requires foreign banks to report on Americans with accounts, the CRS initiative is meant to combat the use of offshore bank accounts to evade taxes.

The loophole arises from quirks in various international disclosure agreements. First, the IFEs aren’t subject to the CRS reporting process because the U.S. hasn’t signed on to it, opting to stick with its 113 separate bilateral agreements. But the IFEs don’t have to comply with these because Puerto Rico, like all U.S. territories, is excluded from those deals. Puerto Rico provides substantial confidentiality protection for foreign individual investors, according to Tim Richards, whose law firm, Richards & Sanchez, specializes in international tax law.

IFEs aren’t immune to official scrutiny, of course. As U.S. institutions, they must report suspicious financial activities and help U.S. government agencies stamp out money laundering, says a spokesman for the IRS. They’re also required to cooperate with IRS inquiries, but IFEs don’t collect information about non-U.S. individuals with accounts if their assets are held through offshore companies or trusts. As long as these don’t have U.S. shareholders or U.S. income, the identity of the ultimate owner doesn’t have to be routinely reported to the IRS. For foreigners who hold such accounts, “there is no reason that a Puerto Rican IFE should be in possession of such data,” Richards said in an email.

How Did Puerto Rico Go Bankrupt?

To take advantage of the loophole, a non-U.S. client sets up a shell company or a trust to hold assets. That entity then deposits funds with a Puerto Rican IFE. “Once set up, it’s a huge way for people to avoid CRS reporting,” says Alan Lips, a partner at Miami-based accounting firm Gerson Preston.

Mark Henny, chairman of Fairwinds International Bank LLC, an IFE that opened last year, traded an office on the eastern shore of Lake Zurich for a suite in an office park in San Juan, the island’s capital. Business is booming, Henny said in an interview with the investment news website in January. His bank’s clients are mainly Europeans, and he expects to “expand towards Latin America and perhaps Asia,” he said.

Henny declined to comment, according to the firm’s chief executive officer, Sebastian Couturier, who also declined, citing travel schedules. Henny told that Fairwinds’s speed of service and the stability and protection of the U.S. legal system were among the reasons clients were attracted to the firm.

Another attraction may be how Puerto Rico treats investments by foreign citizens: That money isn’t subject to tax there. (The IFEs that hold those investments are taxed at just 4 percent of profits.) The 2012 IFE Act was introduced to draw U.S. and foreign investment to the island, where half the population lives in poverty. Assets held by IFEs totaled $848 million at the end of March, up $150 million since the end of 2016, and more than double the amount at the end of 2015. IFEs have attracted insurers, brokers, and banks, among other legitimate operators, according to George Joyner, the commissioner of Puerto Rico’s financial regulator. He stresses that IFEs are subject to U.S. federal regulations and fall under IRS jurisdiction. “Puerto Rico is not and does not intend to become a fiscal tax haven,” Joyner wrote in an email.

Other parts of the U.S. have attracted foreign cash as traditional destinations such as the Bahamas, Grand Cayman, and Switzerland respond to global pressure to crack down on secrecy. Some banks are wooing foreigners to put money in Nevada, South Dakota, and Wyoming with promises of confidentiality as long as they aren’t aiming to evade taxes abroad. Some desire for privacy isn’t unreasonable, regulators and wealth advisers say. Confidential accounts may protect against kidnappings or extortion in countries where law and order is tenuous.

The biggest hurdle to setting up an IFE is establishing correspondent relationships with other banks, which IFEs need in order to send or receive money from around the world. Many global banks are wary about working with financial institutions in a region perceived as carrying regulatory and money laundering risks. Otherwise the requirements aren’t arduous: paid-in capital of $250,000 and an office in Puerto Rico with at least four employees.

“IFEs can be a great asset to Puerto Rico, or they can be poison if not properly regulated,” says Nick Prouty, whose firm, Putnam Bridge, is investing in the territory. He says accounts in the offshore banks ought to be closely watched “to ensure Puerto Rico does not become the next Panama Papers story.” —

BOTTOM LINE – In the past year, 18 offshore banks opened in Puerto Rico, which falls between the cracks of some international financial disclosure agreements.

How do you outsmart an 800 lb gorilla? E-commerce retailers in the two biggest markets China and the U.S. grapple with this question every day.

Many assume the e-commerce game is over given the immense success of Amazon and Alibaba (both have $400+B market caps). Amazon has systematically commoditized product category after product category books, houseware, electronics, clothing, grocery and more, while Alibabas Tmall and Taobao platforms have captured market share and popular imagination with millions of SKUs, truly creating a global everything store.

But declaring game-over in these markets is a mistake. A careful read of emerging trends reveals rich greenfield territory, where billion dollar start-ups can thrive by recognizing the opportunities ofglobal mass marketof millennials from day one.Ive written more on millennial buying habitshere.

Key to understanding these emerging trends is a redefinition of what we mean by mass market. Historically, in a time where buyers and sellers were geographically constrained, serving the mass market meant selling nearly every good in every vertical at the lowest possible price point essentially, creating the everything store with everyday low prices.

This is no longer true in todays smart phone-enabled world. The global mass market largely influenced bymillennial buying habitsand priorities as well as theconsumer upgradehappening in China in which consumers are upgrading their lifestyle through travel, household goods, fashion, dining and more, are seeking out affordable luxury unique products at low prices.

New e-brands likeDollar Shave Cluband 73Hours, a womens shoe brand in China, and vertical marketplaces likeHouzzfor home decorating and remodeling,DarbySmartfor crafters or Red/Xiaohongshu, the go-to site for beauty products in China have seen tremendous growth thanks to their ability to deliver a vastly improved consumer experience. Both e-brands and vertical marketplaces are using curation, personalization and community to prevail in the U.S. and China markets.

Curation vs. the Warehouse

Differentiating from the guerillas begins with search vs. discovery. Amazon and Taobao are giant virtual warehouses that rely upon purpose-based shopping. Consumers visit these sites to find a product they know they want, and can buy for a low price. Consumers log on, search for an item, buy it and leave. Free shipping and next day delivery aside, the experience is too sterile or too cluttered for absent-minded browsing on smartphones.

E-brands and vertical marketplaces arent going to compete with this kind of warehouse search. Instead, they focus ondiscovery curating a body of products in a specific category that customers want to peruse and occasionally purchase. Mobile shopping is becoming entertainment, and a well curated group of products makes for a more enjoyable experience. Online brands are approaching curation in different ways and their popularity is evident in the app store.

Products can be curated by professionals as with Houzz, a social commerce platform for designing your home. Or by KOLs (key opinion leaders) on sites such as withPoshmarkwhere other users recommend new looks. Still others are curated by price as with Hollar and Wish, an app that offers users an elegant stream of insanely discounted goods, andLetGoorOfferUp, Craigslist style resale apps built for easy browsing.

None of these apps target the shoppers who feel they need access to every single product right now. But they do offer consumers a curated experience by product or price to discover affordable luxury products in apps built for the endless entertainment of smartphone users.

The Personal is Social

As much as consumers may love Amazon and Taobao, consumers fundamentally see them as tools, not identities. They will be used for what they are useful for, but you wont find many users turning to these brands for social identity-creation.

Successful e-brands and vertical marketplaces such as AirBnB, Xiaohongshu, Pinterest and Houzz are expert at creating a social following, creating both inspirational and aspirational sense of community. They win by turning their communities and values into cultural cachet, and engender loyalty in consumers precisely because those users feel shopping in the app equates to membership in a sub-culture. Personalization of products and cultivation of community then drive users to project these brands outwards on social media. This is happening in both the US and China.

Some e-commerce upstarts achieve this through value-infused branding, as withLively, a for-women-by-women lingerie brand that celebrates natural body types,Dirty Lemon, a new kind of beverage, orFunction of Beauty, personalized shampoo and conditioner.

Some do it through iterative tailoring to a users tastes, as withStitchFixandDia, subscription clothing delivery services that refine their deliveries based on which clothes users keep and return. On top of this, brands that tailor-make their products and recommendations based on artificial intelligence algorithms will be able to differentiate their app through deep personalization for users.

The industries and tactics are diverse, but they all create one thing: a personal and social reason to buy in the app, not through Amazon or Alibaba. Similarly, offline big box stores are continuing to be challenged by changing customer buying habits and like Walmart, may become more acquisitive to survive.

Jet, Walmarts acquisition to battle Amazon in ecommerce

So Whats Next?

Even with these advantages, can startups truly outsmart Alibaba and Amazon? The answer is yes, and the reason is the massive amount of growth that remains to be realized in e-commerce.

Amazon and Alibaba may be gobbling up the lions share of the two markets, but e-commerce still amounts to just8% and 16%of the total ~$9 trillion retail market in the U.S. and China respectively. Vast swaths of e-commerce dollars remain to be created and claimed. Projecting forward, the e-commerce market segmentation may end up looking more like traditional retail but with a new twist on shopping as an experience, and likely aided by AR/VR technology and artificial intelligence.

Winning these markets means appealing even more to millennials through their values and their communication channels. As e-commerce markets grow and evolve, the startups that curate, personalize and optimize community have the chance to take home a big piece of this ever-growing pie.

Good morning! What all have you accomplished within the first hour of your day so far?

Maybe you answered some emails over coffee or headed to the gym to work out and get caught up on the news. You might have believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast la Alice from Alice in Wonderland and journaled ideas for new products or services you’d like to create next. Or you put on a pair of pants and considered that to be today’s adulting win. But did you do all of the right things in order to be the most productive version of you possible?

I’ll admit that this is kind of a trick question. Productivity listicles advise doing a bit of everything from 20 deep squats while brushing your teeth to gradually waking up earlier and earlier to get the most out of your mornings. Does the act of doing more truly make us more productive or does setting up a mindset to view each morning as a race to win before 6 AM actually push us closer to burning out? If you’re ready to wake up and greet the day with focus rather than panic and feel like you’re running behind, I recommend doing these simple activities.

1. Make your bed

According to Gretchen Rubin, author of the bestseller The Happiness Project, making your bed is what is known as a keystone habit. It’s a feel-good activity that spills over into allowing us to take on other healthy habits like exercise and cooking. When you find yourself beginning to flourish within these habits, you’ll gradually notice how it begins to affect your life. For example, if you used to order takeout frequently but are learning how to cook and enjoying the process of making your own meals, you’ll be less inclined to revert back to that past behavior.

Rubin notes in her book that when it comes to inspiring happiness, people repeatedly bring up making the bed as the number one impactful change you can make in your life. As far as morning activities go, this one also isn’t time-consuming no matter what size your bed might be. And if you’ve had a tough day, the added bonus is being able to go home and sink into a freshly made bed.

2. Think before you drink

Coffee is a $20 billion dollar industry and one that many of us arguably *cant* live without. However, it’s also a habit that can add up (if you tend to frequent coffeehouses daily) with caffeine affecting your body and overall health. Take a moment to pause and consider what you’re drinking and how it affects your physical and mental state each day. If you’re looking for an alternative to the morning java that keeps you perky for the next eight hours, consider sipping on any of these beverages.

Water: If an apple a day keeps the doctor away, kick starting your mornings with plenty of water will keep you hydrated and energized all day long. Remember eight glasses or bust. If plain water doesn’t do it for you, add a little lemon. This improves your stomachs nutrient absorption and lemons load you up with all-natural benefits including antioxidants and vitamins.

Apple cider vinegar with green tea: Green tea is another antioxidant-rich drink that has also been proven to improve how your brain functions and offers up a stable kind of energy as opposed to coffees jittery side effects. Add in a few splashes of apple cider vinegar as your not-so-secret ingredient. When you sip a bit of apple cider vinegar each day, it helps detox your body and acts as a natural antibiotic for your skin and stomach to better aid with digestion and your overall immune systems health.

Kombucha or Chai: In need of an afternoon pick-me-up? Pour yourself a mug of the fermented tea drink Kombucha for an extra burst of energy or rejuvenate the senses with a hot and spicy Chai tea to sip on.

3. Practice an attitude of gratitude

Each morning, I think before I do anything. I practice a daily attitude of gratitude where I reflect on all of the things I am grateful for in my life. It helps me to set the tone for the day to come and to recognize that even when times are tough, I am truly lucky and thankful to be where I’m at.

Take a couple of minutes after you wake up to breathe and focus on those obvious and not-so-obvious things to be grateful about. For entrepreneurs, obvious areas might be your family, friends, and business. Less than obvious blessings can be having a stocked fridge, the neighborhood you work out of, or the umbrella that shields you from a sudden downpour on the day of a big meeting.

When you practice gratitude actively, you’ll discover that your mindset will gradually shift in the process. You might find yourself less focused on cramming in a million things early into the day and more renewed at the prospect that there is always this afternoon, evening, and tomorrow to keep working and discovering new things about yourself and the world to which you’ll feel grateful as well as productive.

Deborah Sweeney is the CEO of MyCorporation.com. MyCorporation is a leader in online legal filing services for entrepreneurs and businesses, providing start-up bundles that include corporation and LLC formation, registered agent, DBA, and trademark & copyright filing services. MyCorporation does all the work, making the business formation and maintenance quick and painless, so business owners can focus on what they do best. Follow her on Google+ and on Twitter @mycorporation.

As of this year, about 81% of the United States population uses at least one social media platform. That number is growing by roughly 5% per year. At this rate, 100% of the United States will have a social media profile on at least one platform by 2021.

Businesspeople searching for the ideal marketing channel to engage prospects should look no further than social networks. Social media provides companies with ample information to create messages targeted to valuable niche audiences, and given the statistics, it’s inevitable that the audience you are trying to reach is on at least one social network. But it is no longer enough to just show up. To stand out online, companies need to create an engaging social presence. This article will look at 10 ways to create a compelling social presence online.

1. Know your audience well

There are countless unique social media audiences online. This means that, if you want to create a powerful social presence, you must first understand your audience.

When a brand is trying to reach a specific subset of the population, marketers start by creating a customer persona. Think of a persona as a way of summarizing a groups demographic and psychographic tendencies. Armed with this information, it is much easier to create compelling campaigns that engage the target audience.

Similarly, as someone trying to create an engaging social presence, it may make sense to get to know your target audience first. What are their likes and dislikes? How do they prefer to consume media? What social media platforms do they use most, and what motivates them to use those platforms? These are just some of the questions to consider before building a social presence.

2. Study the competition

If youre just getting started, it may be difficult to know how to best engage followers. To accelerate your social media growth, study direct competitors who have already made good use of social media. What do they do that engages followers?

Image: Instagram

Take the 2 images above as an example of what can happen thanks to good competitive research. Nike and Adidas are well-known fitness apparel competitors. It is likely that they both watch what the other company is doing on Instagram, perhaps by using some kind of Instagram analytics tool. Both pieces of content are similar in composition and description. It’s probable that one social media manager saw that the content resonated with followers and decided to make something similar.

3. Vary media formats

A big component of social media platforms is content freshness. Usually, when people hear this term they think it refers to how frequently content is posted. While it does matter when you post content, freshness also refers to the format the content is posted in. At one point, all Instagram posts were images. Then the platform brought video and carousel content on board, and they instantly became popular. Currently, Instagram Stories are gaining traction.

As a social media manager, you must constantly vary the media formats you are using in order to keep users engaged. Failing to do so will slow the growth of the channel and can make followers bored with what you are sharing.

4. Master the eccentricities of each social media platform

No 2 audiences are alike, and the same is true for social media platforms. If you are using more than 1 social media platform, it is important to understand the unique qualities that make the platform appealing to users. Once identified, master those unique qualities to ensure that your content is taking full advantage of the platforms strengths.

For example, you wouldn’t use Twitter to share a lot of photo or video content (Instagram and Snapchat are better for that). Likewise, you wouldn’t use LinkedIn to share highly personal updates (Twitter and Facebook are better for that). Stay on top of platform changes to ensure that your content is as engaging as possible.

5. Provide unique value with behind-the-scenes content

Again, if you are managing multiple social media platforms to promote the same brand, be sure to give followers a reason to follow you on each of those platforms. Recycling content is a surefire way to create a boring social media presence.

One way to offer followers a unique experience is to provide them with a peek behind the curtain. Show them what day-to-day life at the company looks like. Social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat are ideal for sharing behind-the-scenes content that makes followers feel like they have unique access to a brand they care about.

Salesforce does a good job of knowing when and where to share behind-the-scenes content. In the example below, Salesforce uses Twitter for sharing content and promoting products.

Image: Twitter

Whereas on Instagram, Salesforce shares behind-the-scenes content that shows people what it is like to work at the most valuable SaaS (software as a service) company in the world.

Image: Instagram

6. Make use of user-generated content

User-generated content (also known as UGC) is a great way to re-share engaging content that also provides your followers with social proof. Car companies are adept at re-sharing UGC to create an engaging social media presence.

Image: Instagram

In the example above, Porsche re-shares an example of UGC. The company shares UGC so frequently that they use the hashtag #PorscheMoment to help followers see all of the photos shared over time.

7. Test influencer marketing partnerships

According to a study by Ogilvy, 74% of consumers turn to social media for guidance when making purchasing decisions. Influencer marketing harnesses the power of trusted social media celebrities to help prospects make the best purchasing decision. It is a great way to engage with prospective customers.

While influencer marketing can sometimes be hard to measure, using a checkout code or tracking links can help brands test the immediate financial impact of working with a social media influencer. At the very least, influencers who have experience creating engaging content for a specific audience can give you advice on how to better engage with followers.

9. Produce live video segments

According to Livestream, 80% of survey respondents say they would rather watch a branded live video than a blog post. This new interest in live streaming explains why platforms like Twitter and Facebook have invested heavily in producing live streaming products for users.

For those interested in creating engaging social media content, live streaming is the way to go. The platforms tend to reward live streaming content by alerting followers when you go live.

10. Interact with commenters

There is no better way to encourage followers to engage with content than by interacting with those who do. Liking or replying to a handful of comments from followers is a great way to encourage other followers to engage with content in the future. This process can create a virtuous cycle that helps to consistently increase the engagement rate. I personally built a Calendar tool to help with this, check it out.

Conclusion

There are many different tactics that you can employ to create engaging social media content. Knowing your audience, varying content and mastering each social media platform will provide you with a good start. It is also a good idea to study the competition, and to consider employing influencer marketers and user-generated content.

500 Startups is ramping up its next batch of companies in its early-stage startup program, which this time consists of 36 startups.

The firms pitch to companies entering the accelerator has generally been that it can better help support growth and marketing efforts. So a lot of the companies you’ll find in this batch are ones that align neatly with those needs, from financial tech to digital health. They’re the kinds of businesses that may look better at scale, but need help getting off the ground.

WayPay Streamlines the accounts payable process for SMEs by connecting to any AP system and automatically reconciling payments sent to local or international suppliers from any combination of bank and credit card accounts.

]]>U.S. Job Openings Surge to Record in Sign of Robust Labor Demandhttps://www.makemoneyonlinetrends.com/2017/08/09/u-s-job-openings-surge-to-record-in-sign-of-robust-labor-demand/
Wed, 09 Aug 2017 12:23:20 +0000http://www.makemoneyonlinetrends.com/?p=65Read more →]]>A June surge in U.S. job openings to a record indicates demand for workers remained strong at the end of the second quarter, a Labor Department report showed Tuesday.

Key TakeawaysThe gain in job openings underscores the need for workers in an economy that’s continuing to expand. At the same time, the pool of qualified Americans is shrinking and making some positions tougher to fill, one reason economists expect the monthly pace of hiring will eventually cool. July figures released last week showed payrolls increased more than forecast while the unemployment rate matched a 16-year low, as Americans came off the sidelines to join the labor force and many found work.The JOLTS report also showed fewer people quitting their jobs, considered a gauge of workers’ willingness to voluntarily leave because they’re confident of finding a better job. That indicates faster wage growth, which has remained elusive in recent years, may still take time to materialize. The quits rate, which remains near its post-recession high, is among indicators of labor-market slack that Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen monitors.

Other Details

There were 1.1 unemployed people vying for every opening in June, down from 1.9 people when the recession began at the end of 2007

Most industries showed a pickup in openings, including record postings for health care and social assistance and gains for professional and business services; retail showed a decline

In the 12 months through June, the economy created a net 2.3 million jobs, representing 63.4 million hires and 61.1 million separations

Although it lags the Labor Department’s other jobs data by a month, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey report — or JOLTS — adds context to monthly payrolls figures by measuring dynamics such as resignations, help-wanted ads and the pace of hiring

Highlights of Job Openings (June)

Number of positions rose by 461k, most in almost two years, to 6.163m (est. 5.75m) from upwardly revised 5.702m in May

Hiring fell to 5.36m from 5.46m; hiring rate held at 3.7%

3.13m Americans quit their jobs, down from 3.21m; quits rate fell to 2.1% from 2.2%

Shares were quickly up 5 percent in initial after-hours trading on the good news, but one often overlooked category is other products, where they group in the performance of things like Apple Watches, Apple TVs, Beats electronics, iPods and Apple-branded accessories.

This category brought in $2.74 billion in revenue and is up 23 percent since the same period last year. One product that is contributing to the annual revenue growth is AirPods, the wireless earbuds that Apple released in December of last year. (I personally think they look a tad dorky, but everyone I know who has them loves the sound quality.)

Since all AirPod revenue is new and the Apple Watch is up more than 50 percent since last year, that means most of the other products in the category likely saw much slower growth or even some declines since the weighted average is lower, at a positive 23 percent. But without knowing approximately what revenue percentage Apple Watch accounts for, we don’t know for sure.

One analyst, Ben Bajarin from Creative Strategies, estimates that Apple Watch sold two to three million devices.

It’s not clear why sales are up so significantly. Some people have suggested that compatibility with AirPods have helped sales. It also probably helps that fitness trackers like Fitbit are struggling and Jawbone is going out of business. Also, since the release dates were staggered, a September 2016 watch is more current than an April 2015 watch was in the same period last year.

Other products is down 5 percent since quarter two of this year, but there tends to be a seasonality to retail products. Also, it’s been a while since the September 2016 release of the Apple Watch second generation product and Apple TV hasn’t had a new product since October 2015, so a quarterly decline is not surprising.

Then there’s Beats Electronics, which the company spent $3 billion to buy in 2014. The Dr. Dre-branded headphones have a cult following, but there’s also a lot of competition.

As for iPods, most Apple fans own an iPhone by now, so it’s hard to see why people would buy a separate product with overlapping capabilities.

Let’s hope Apple gives us a more detailed breakdown of all the other products.